After a few setbacks and adjustments and tests, July ended up being a good month. The weather during our family vacation to Maine was perfect and I managed a couple longer rides.

For the month, the numbers worked out like so:
Total distance traveled: 348 miles
Total feet of ascent: 13,300 feet

 This is 12 miles shy of my personal record for a calendar month in distance. The good news is that I’m back on track for 3,000 miles in 2013. The sad news is that my arrhythmia still isn’t fully controlled, which will probably mean no D2R2 this year.

I am signed up to ride in the Rodman Ride for Kids, going 100 miles. In order to get as much as possible for the Family Nurturing Center, I’m going to ask you kind sponsors to use the fundraising site for the Rodman Ride to make your donations. There is up to a 15% match of donations they receive through the ride, so it seems worth it to fudge the “miles for the whole year” thing to “extrapolated total miles based on riding through October.”

If you mind, just send me a message and we’ll work something out.

I’ve slowly been working my way back to fitness and into comfort with my body. I’ve been commuting and taking shorter rides. I even rode some repeats on some hills in my neighborhood in an effort to get a better sense of how my body–my heart, really–reacts to different levels of effort.

Today I finally took a more ambitious ride, covering a little under 30 miles between my parents’ house in Acton and our place in Belmont. This included a few miles of dirt trails, which is my favorite. I ran into some friends along the Minuteman and chatted with a few other cyclists on a very busy day on the roads and especially on the trail.

All told, about 28 miles and a little under 1,000 feet of ascent, not any huge numbers but a good test of my fitness and my heart. In a little under two weeks I’ll try about 90 miles and quite a bit more climbing. I’ll report back on the results of that effort once I’ve recovered.

A quick update on my heart condition: I underwent a procedure to address the electrical issue in my heart. Unfortunately, they weren’t able to recreate the arrhythmia in the lab, which left them unable to positively identify the area causing the problem, which left them unable to fix the problem.

With that, I’m left to take some medications (beta blockers). It may be that I’ll go in for another try at catheterization one day. It was a very unpleasant experience, so I’d prefer to wait before going in for more.

I rode for the first time in a month yesterday, going about 10 miles out to the Minuteman Trail, then along the length of the new-ish trail that follows Alewife Brook up toward the Mystic River. If you haven’t been out that way, I recommend it. It’s a mix of boardwalks, asphalt and packed dirt and is quite pleasant. They’re still working on a section near Mystic street, and it wasn’t clear whether there was some way to connect down to the paths that go along the wide part of the Mystic River where it runs close to route 93. Let me know if you’d like to come explore that with me.

June’s miles are quite paltry, and I’ll explain why:

Total Distance: 82.3 miles
Total Climbing: 2,736 feet

After my commute home on the 11th I noticed I was a little dizzy and felt like I wasn’t breathing enough. I wrote to my doctor and the next day I had a stress test at the hospital that revealed an electrical issue in my heart. I experienced what is called supraventricular tachycardia, which is a fancy way of saying that my heart was going really fast due to an electrical mix-up in the upper part of my heart. The situation was rather serious: my heart topped out at 250 beats per minute before, in a single beat, dropping back to normal.

The great news is that there is a curative procedure (called catheter ablation) that will be performed June 25th by one of the best doctors in the world. The bad news is that I’m off my bike, and other strenuous exercise, until I’m done recovering after the procedure 2 weeks later (July 9th).

I’ll be off the bike four weeks total, which will put a serious dent in my chances of hitting 3,000 miles for the year. That said, I plan to bike a LOT in July and August to prepare for D2R2, a ride in western Massachusetts and southern Vermont that I have been looking forward to since I did it last August.

With any luck and some dedication, I think I can get back on track for 3,000 miles in 2013. It would be great to have company, as always, to help me through the miles as I catch up. Let me know if you’re up for a chat and a ride.

Spring sure is nice! Not as much riding as I’d expected as I opted out of a 200k early in the month to spend the time with my family instead. I’ll try to make up for it this summer.

This month’s totals:
Total Distance: 314.2 miles
Total Climbing: 10,684 feet

Lots and lots of commuting in lots of rain. I also got a few shorter recreational rides in. In lieu of the aforementioned 200k I rode about 32 miles around the east side of the Kennebec River in Maine with my brother-in-law, Ian. We saw several beautiful farms, including a couple for sale, and even got in a little dirt road riding.

I rode with my neighbor, Justin, out to Winchester before work one morning and we managed, for the first time in riding together, to not get even a little lost. That’s what we we get for having a deadline for getting home–lost is pretty fun sometimes.

I towed both kids in the trailer out the Minuteman Trail to Wilson Farms in Lexington. Together they weigh about 65 pounds and the trailer is another 15 or so. Climbing back up the hill to our house at the end was tough, but I was heartened to see Milo enjoyed the ride enough to fall asleep. Maybe I wasn’t climbing that hill fast enough to keep him interested.

I did a few rides with my father-in-law, Danny, in the Gardiner, Maine area, and I finally got to go on a ride with my wife, Laura, on the bike I bought for her this winter. We headed out a rail-trail and then climbed a short, steep hill to check out some farms and coast down a long, easy downhill.

The best bike news for this month is that I bought my daughter a pedal bike. She’s tentative right now, but once she gets going I think we’ll have a lot of fun riding around together. It’s a Dutch bike with fenders and a rack, and there has already been a request to make accommodations for a baby doll on there.

As always, please sponsor me if you haven’t already (there’s a link at the top of the page), and please send me an email if you’d like to do some riding.

The events in Boston and nearby Watertown were unsettling and led me to hunker down a bit with the family when I’d planned to spend a bit more time in the saddle. That includes the 200k randonnee I’d planned to do the first weekend of May, which I’ve been planning to do since last Spring, but which now seems like more time than I want to commit to such endeavors. I’ll be in Maine with family. I’ll probably get a long ride in during the weekend, but nothing like 200 kilometers.

April’s tallies are:

337.4 miles ridden
11,808 feet of climbing

This included two separate weeks over 100 miles and three recreational rides. On April 27th I participated in a 100k Randonnee going from Hanscom Air Field in Bedford out to Sterling and back. A randonnee is a kind of ride where you sign a card at the start, get it signed at controls along a set course, and finish before the time limit expires. It’s a race against the clock. 100k is like a baby race compared to the longest version, which is 1200k.

I finished well within the 7 hour time limit after keeping up with some much stronger riders for fifty or so miles. I stopped in a field and took a rest, then joined a couple guys riding at a pace better suited to my fitness and equipment. We stopped for cookies in Concord. These are my people.

I rode around Maine a bit for one ride on familiar loops, but was happy to have my father- and brother-in-law keeping me company. The highlight of the month was actually a solo ride out the Minuteman Bikeway, then along the length of the Reformatory Branch Trail (RBT) to Concord. The RBT is unpaved and runs through the woods and along marshes. I explored several side-trails and watched birds and took my time. I need to remember to do that more often.

The good news is that all this riding puts me at 1,002 miles for the year to date–on pace for 3,000! Progress on my secondary goal of climbing 125,000 feet is coming more slowly at 32,689 (on pace for 98,067).

As always, I want to ride with you, so send me an email and we’ll go.

A little less snow and fewer illnesses this month:
Monthly Distance: 273.5 miles
Monthly Climbing: 8,970 feet

That makes a little under 670 miles and just shy of 21,000 feet of climbing for the year so far. I got to work exclusively by bike–I’ve only taken another mode of transit once in 2013 so far–and finally started getting in a few morning and weekend rides.

I’m definitely not in ideal shape for longer rides, but I’ll spend the next few weeks preparing for a 100k put on by the New England Randonneurs (NER). That ride goes from Hanscom Airfield in Bedford out to Sterling center, then comes back. I’m not too worried about that ride, but more daunting will be two weeks later when I’ll ride the NER 200k, which will be the longest ride I’ve done. In ever.

Friday the 29th, my last ride of the month, I finally got my “nice” bike out and used it for my commute. It’s a little like a Cadillac: it’s not especially fast or sporty, but it sure is comfortable. And after months of riding a somewhat harsh aluminum cyclocross frame with no rack, it was a very nice ride on the fatter tires and with no backpack weighing me down. I’m looking forward to the warmer months!

As always, I want to go on a ride with you. I like riding–fast or slow–so send me an email and we’ll go. And finally, if you haven’t put in a pledge for the year, please visit the calculator and use the little tool to send me an email with your pledge to support the Family Nurturing Center.

As a person trying to ride a lot of miles every month, I find February to be a little difficult. Winter deepens around here and there’s more snow and salt on the roads–and less road available–and things get dicey.

Between the short month, a couple snowstorms, holidays and sickness, I racked up some paltry numbers this month: 158 miles and 4,914 feet of climbing. Not terrible, and thanks to January’s more cooperative weather I’m still on pace with last year. Plus, the snow meant I got to cross-country ski, something last year’s bike-friendly weather didn’t really accommodate.

I did manage one non-commute ride and that was before work, something I hope to do a lot more often as the winter wanes a bit and early mornings aren’t so cold and icy. I rode out to Waltham along Trapelo road rode around the Bentley campus for a bit, then watched the sun rise and rode home to get ready for work. The main challenge was getting out of bed. I spent about 20 minutes having an internal debate. It was about 22 degrees out, I knew, and it was a lot warmer than that in my bed. Finally I got up and out the door and was glad for it in the end.

Finally, if you haven’t gotten a chance, please visit the Sponsor Me page to make a pledge to support my efforts this year and, more importantly, to support the efforts of the Family Nurturing Center.

Distance ridden this month: 235.3
Monthly Climbing: 7,110 feet

January in Boston is always tough for biking, even if you’ve got the good gear, it takes a lot of energy to get ready and out the door. It’s cold, often dark, snowy, salty, the roads are narrow and the appeal of reading a book on the bus is very hard to resist.

Once I’m on my bike those annoyances usually fade away. I’ve enjoyed several evenings in light snow, listening to my tires crunch along the quiet streets on my commute home. Other cyclists out on windy, cold mornings are instant friends because you clearly share the same love.

My commute involves a mix of roads and paths. In the morning I ride east along the Cambridge bank of the Charles River, in the evening I ride west on the Boston side. It’s about 13 miles round-trip and the most pleasant bike commute I’ve had. Through the year, and especially in the winter, most of my miles come through commuting.

I did manage a recreational ride early in the month, venturing out the Minuteman trial on a warmer Sunday. Thanks to Jeff for coming along and taking it easy on me. 235 miles is the most I’ve ever ridden in a January, so it’s a good start to the year.

I’ll continue to make monthly updates to this ride journal and will  write up additional summaries if I’ve been on deserving rides. Also, I’ll make some updates to this site’s appearance and function, including some features to give context to the distances I’ve covered.

Miscellaneous facts from January:

• Coldest ride: One morning commute started in 4 degrees. The next day felt colder because it was cloudy and windier, although it was twice as warm at 8 degrees. The warmest ride was 60 degrees on January 30th at 10pm. It was weird.
• Days goggles would have been nice: at least 4. I wore them once and it was amazing.
• Number of times I cleaned and re-lubricated my chain: ten eleven
• Longest ride: 27 miles with Jeff (noted above). Out the Minuteman and back, chatting the whole way.

I bike a lot every year, including several recreational rides and one 100-mile charity ride in September. The charity ride is great, but I thought it might be nice to try an experiment for this year. Rather than raise funds for those 100 miles, I’m asking folks (like you) to pledge for all the miles I ride in 2013.

In short: I’m asking people to pledge some amount (say, 5 cents) per mile I ride in 2013. At the end of the year (or close to it) we’ll do some math and you’ll simply cut a check to The Family Nurturing Center of Boston–the beneficiary of my efforts for the year. Needless to say, they’re a great organization and I’ve ridden several charity rides to help them raise funds in the past. You can learn more about them on their site: http://www.familynurturing.org.

You’ll just make your donation directly to them so it will be tax-deductible and we won’t have to give any of it to some middle-man to handle online donations. This way all the money goes to FNC.

Throughout the year I’ll keep you updated with a mileage tracker, monthly ride summaries and special posts for special rides I have planned for the year. Some of those features aren’t built yet, but I’ll get to them soon.

I track my mileage and total elevation gain–basically the total number of feet up I’ve pedaled. This means you can pledge per mile I ride or per foot I climb. To give you an idea, in 2012 I rode 2944.5 miles and climbed 121,518 feet. My goals for this year are 3,000+ miles and 125,000+ feet of climbing.

I appreciate your support in reaching another goal, which is to raise $2,500 for FNC in 2013.
Become a sponsor.

Finally, and almost as important, I hope you’ll also help me pedal along by coming with me for a ride. Just let me know when you want to go!